1 hr
Anti-Waffle Podcast with Professor John Ward Anti-Waffle Podcast
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- Education
John Ward, Professor of Synthetic Biology for Bioprocessing at UCL speaks to Pixie and Em about his work using and experimenting with enzymes to make very specific changes in small molecules, doing with biology what organic chemists do with chemistry, but making much less waste and shortening the number of steps for each change process.
Professor Ward explains how he and others at UCL will be applying their expertise to experiment with enzymes that may mitigate the problems of plastic and plastic waste. They hope to find bacteria and enzymes that can start to degrade and chop up, very specifically, certain kinds of plastics.
The research also includes a citizen science project looking at composting to see how ‘biodegradeable’ and compostable plastics break down in different environments. 6 months after binning a plastic knife in there, is it recognisable?
John Ward, Professor of Synthetic Biology for Bioprocessing at UCL speaks to Pixie and Em about his work using and experimenting with enzymes to make very specific changes in small molecules, doing with biology what organic chemists do with chemistry, but making much less waste and shortening the number of steps for each change process.
Professor Ward explains how he and others at UCL will be applying their expertise to experiment with enzymes that may mitigate the problems of plastic and plastic waste. They hope to find bacteria and enzymes that can start to degrade and chop up, very specifically, certain kinds of plastics.
The research also includes a citizen science project looking at composting to see how ‘biodegradeable’ and compostable plastics break down in different environments. 6 months after binning a plastic knife in there, is it recognisable?
1 hr